Matthew 16:16-19
On the edge
What are you looking for? Every one is looking for something. A new job, new house a new car or maybe a new boy or girl friend. We look and look. Christians are looking as well for something, sometimes it’s being more encouraging or smarter about scripture. We even look for being more spiritual in live and actions. Some even look for ways to serve or where to sere. What are you looking for?
I remember the first time I went to Haiti on a mission trip, I really thought I was going to impress those Haitians with my knowledge and my understanding of scripture after all they are unschooled and uncool about the way’s of God right?
Well what I learned was they could care less about my knowledge or my speaking skill they just wanted to know someone who cared about them and would do something to help them just to live and survive. They needed someone who was on the edge of true Christianity and understood what it would take to care for them or at least someone who would try to learn what it would take even by mistake. What I learned was we all must be on the edge.
When someone ask you where you go to church say on the edge. They might ask on the edge of what or where, just say on the edge.
I am going to in the next three weeks speak on the edge of what and where but to day I want to get us to the place we can understand how to get on the edge.
Yes being on the edge can be very dangerous; after all we might fall off.
While in Haiti I had the opportunity after walking ten miles, (yes up hill all the way) up a mountain to get to a village called Des-Alms. When I arrived there
I was exhausted and wiped out but I stood on the edge of the cliff just outside of that village and the view was beyond description, it was awesome scary but awesome. I would never have seen that view if I would not have gone to the edge.
Before we can grasp what we are on the edge of, we must first understand how to be on the edge, how to get so close we can see the whole view, picture of what God wants us to be as a church.
To be the Church on the edge we must first understand.
1. The Church is with out walls.
The Church is not built by man for man---VS 18 (Build My Church), that was Jesus speaking.
In other words it is built by God with people not by people using stone, wood, steel, concrete or other building materials man uses.
A. It extends from here to Hell itself. No walls to hinder the outreach of His message. One thing stopping the Church from being on the edge is the thinking we must go to church or we meet at the church. We seem to forget we, you and me are the church. Acts 2:47 shows we are added by the Lord to His church in the KJV and in the NIV it says to the saved.
When we are asked where we go to church we say we go to the Ligonier Church of Christ at 9025N 860W on the corner of North Main St and Perry Rd. We need to say the Church meets weekly at the Ligonier Church of Christ building at 9025N 860W on the corner of North Main St and Perry RD. But we go to the church on the edge.
"As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 2:4-5
“Living stones” sounds like a contradiction in terms. Nothing is more inanimate than a stone. Stones are not a staple of life. The idea that God infused life where it did not exist before shows us something of the wonder of the gospel. God takes us in our most lifeless form, when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and gives us new life in him. In his hands we become malleable as our Lord shapes us and conforms us to be a part of his church.
Let me give you a pre-definition for what the church is. For many have mistakenly defined the church in terms of a building where people gather once a week so they feel good enough to make it through the next week. That’s not the purpose of the church; it’s merely a benefit.
The sole purpose of the church is to be the dynamic, living body through which God can accomplish His work to His glory. It is a living growing ever changing life force. Jesus is the Life force.
Because without Christ there can be no true Praise and worship. Without Christ there can be no true fellowship. Without Christ there can be no true knowledge of God. Without Christ there can be no solid spiritual guidance and healing.
If we are saved, it is because Jesus found us. He singled us out --- through no merit of our own --- paid the price, revealed Himself to us, and called us to follow Him.
The Church has no walls; it fills the earth with Jesus and His gospel message.
To be the Church on the edge we must understand
2. We do not own the church!
It is not ours, it is not mine and it is not yours. It belongs to Jesus. He said I will build MY church. The church belongs to Him as we belong to Him, for we are His body,(the church is His to command, build, grow and move in the direction of His desire, if it were to take us to the very edge so we may see the whole picture, complete with nothing blocking our view of what He desires us to see and be.)
In our text, Jesus’ statement did not end with the words “I will build My Church.” He also said, “And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”
That statement alone means that our view of the church must go deeper because Jesus is implying that you’ve got something that the Devil wants to put a halt to.
Hades is the place of punishment for the spirits of dead unbelievers. The point of entry for such is death. This, then, is a Jewish phrase referring to death. Even death, the ultimate weapon of Satan ( Heb. 2:14, 15), has no power to stop the church.
Death will have no impact against us as believers. Death will not overcome, overpower, or overtake what Jesus is building. It can’t, it does not have the power, strength or the army to do so.
If your are experiencing death to your spiritual life, death to your relationships, death to your finances, death to your marriage, death to your family, check who is do the building.
Jesus in essence says when I am the builder no matter what Hell throws at you it will not prevail.
When you set out to build church your way,
When you set out to define church your way,
When we set out to redefine the agenda for the church our way instead of Jesus’ way…
We will NOT be a powerful, redeeming influence in the streets.
If he said hell couldn’t stop His church, then hell cannot stop it. So if we are being stopped, then we must not be His church. We must move to the edge
And follow Jesus the unstoppable power, force—The head—
To be on the edge we must…
3. Know where we are in Christ.
Are we in Christ? Have we been-Baptzed in to Christ
(Galatians 3:26&27 You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ)
You see if we are not in Christ than we can never get to the edge.
Where are you in Christ? Today? Now?
In the next three weeks we will discuss on the edge of what wand where.
